Why “Beast in the East” Should Be The Model for Commentary
By Evan Gomes
What made the commentary at “Beast in the East” so good?
There was a large outpouring of praise for “The Beast in the East” show, and rightfully so. The Japanese crowd booed the heels and cheered the faces. The matches themselves were tremendous, including Brock Lesnar destroying Kofi Kingston’s positivity and Finn Balor winning the NXT title in the country he honed his craft. The atmosphere was everything you want in a show. The most interesting aspect people were talking about post-show was the commentary work.
The commentary team for the Japan house show was Michael Cole and Byron Saxton. It was already a big change going from a three person commentary team to a two person team. It changed the dynamic of the broadcast tremendously. With the three person teams on RAW and SmackDown, there tends to be a need from the teams to fill all the airtime with talking. There is rarely a moment of silence or just listening to the sounds of the match.
Cole and Saxton did a great job of not needing to fill all of the silence. Both men only spoke when it added to the moment as opposed to plugging the WWE Network, or the app, or talking about something not related to the match. The commentary added to the feel of the big matches instead of detracting from it.
The commentary team also did a great job of providing enough of a balance between backstory and calling the action. Cole and Saxton alluded to Finn Balor’s history in Japan and his training there; they discussed Balor and Owens’ experiences in the indy’s. Both guys on commentary talked about the feud going into the matches, bud didn’t let it overtake the match itself.
A forgotten art in commentary is that of legitimately calling the moves as they happen. Jim Ross and Joey Styles (who is a walking encyclopedia of Dean Malenko’s 1000 Holds) were some of the best at calling the action within the ring. At the “Beast in the East,” Cole called the moves as they happened, giving more legitimacy to the fight. Cole even differentiated between Jericho’s Walls of Jericho and his Liontamer. It is small things like this that added to the overall feel of the show.
The big question is: what lead to this change in the commentary team? The most common thought: Vince McMahon wasn’t in the ear of Cole and Saxton doing commentary, which means that they didn’t have to plug twitter and other products during the matches. The two of them could focus on the show’s product, not all of the extras associated with it.
Going forward, this should be the way the commentary teams are. Get Vince out of the ears of the commentators and let them call the matches as opposed to plugging the product. It appeals to the purists more and casual fans would even think that the product has a more “big-fight” feel. I know it is a longhsot to see this change, but the payoff could be tremendous for the product.
What do you think? Did you enjoy the commentary at “Beast in the East?” Should they change the commentary teams on the main shows? Let us know in the comments below.
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